Born on February 21,
1941, I am the oldest son of William and Joanna McGaughey. My brother,
Andrew Durham McGaughey, was born on June 30, 1942. My brother, David
Payson McGaughey, was born on June 26, 1944. My sister, Margaret Durham
McGaughey (now Margaret McGaughey Isaacson) was born on May 29, 1948.
So there were four children in the family. My two brothers have both
died. My sister and I remain alive as of January 2011.

When I was born
in Detroit in 1941, my family lived in an apartment at 999 Whitmore
Street (near Palmer Park) in Detroit. I do not remember the neighborhood.
In two or three years, my family moved to 2224 Seminole Avenue in the Indian
Village neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. It was around five blocks
from the Detroit river. I lived there until the age of 14. Then my family
moved to Bloomfield Hills. First we lived in a rented house at 3501
Lahser Road for
about a year while I was in 10th grade. Then my parents bought a house at
131 Guilford Road in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb northwest of Detroit,
close to
Woodward Avenue and Barden Road. We lived there from around 1957 to 1963
when my parents moved to New York City.

With respect to education,
I attended kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades at Liggett School, a private
school on Burns Avenue in Indian Village, which
was about five blocks distant from my home. Then, I went to the John F.
Nichols
elementary school, a public school, on Burns avenue, which was a block
north of Liggett. This I attended during 3rd and 4th grades. After
continuing at
Nichols for two weeks of 5th grade, my parents decided to put my brother
Andy
and me in a private school for boys in Grosse Pointe Woods called Detroit
University School (DUS). I attended this school in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and
8th grade, from
around 1950 to 1954. The school became coed and its name was changed to
Grosse Pointe University School (GPUS) in 1955. I attended 9th grade
at this school.

After my family moved
to Bloomfield Hills, I attended 10th grade at Bloomfield Hills High
School, west of Telegraph Avenue
on Long Lake Road. Then, I
finished up at Cranbrook School, a private boys school in Bloomfield
Hills, for my
11th and 12th grades. I was a boarding student although my family lived
nearby. After graduation from Cranbrook, I attended Yale College in New
Haven, Connecticut.

I mention this history
to suggest periods of time when I had contact with my siblings. The
most contact was in the earlier
period of time,
before
I attended
Detroit University School in 1950. My brother Andy attended this school
together; David did not, until later. I did not attend any school with
my sister Margaret
because she was younger and the private schools were gender specific.
Also because I attended Cranbrook as a boarding rather than day student,
I spent
much of my time during 11th and 12th grades away from my family.

During
my college years, between 1958 and 1964, I lived in New Haven, Connecticut,
except for two years (1961-63) when I temporarily dropped
of college. I
then lived with my parents for about nine months; the remaining time
was spent
in West Germany. Following graduation from college in June 1964,
I attended Rutgers
School of Business in Newark, New Jersey, for six months, and then
moved to Minnesota. I have lived in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota
continuously
since
that time except for four months in the autumn of 1970 when I lived
by myself in Milford, Pennsylvania.

As for the rest of
my birth family, my parents first lived in Sutton Place, around 50th
Street, in New
York City for several years starting
in 1963
after my father became employed at the National Association of
Manufacturers. Then
they moved to an apartment on the upper east side, 510 East 86th
Street, in the Yorkville section of New York City, not far from
the East River.
The National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM) moved its headquarters from
New York City to Washington, D.C. in early 1970s. My parents bought
a
condominium at Harbor
Square in southeast Washington, perhaps six blocks east of the
U.S. Capitol.
After my father retired from the NAM in 1976, he worked for BIPAC
for several more years.

Then, after my father’s
retirement from BIPAC, my parents moved to our ancestral home in Milford,
Pennsylvania, where they lived by themselves for
another two decades. My mother moved into the Milford Convalescence
Center, between Milford and Port Jervis, from May 1999, when
she
had her colon removed,
until she died at the Bon Secours hospital in Port Jervis, New
York, in April 2001. My father lived at the Milford Convalescence
Center and a nursing home
near Andover, New Jersey from June 1999 until he died in Andover
in November 2004, just before Thanksgiving Day.

During my first
two years at Yale, my brother Andy was a student at Phillips Exeter
Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. After graduating
from high school,
he attended Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for
one year.
That summer - 1991 - he was taken into the mental health system
following an incident
of violence at my parents’ home in Bloomfield Hills,
Michigan. He went first to the Lafayette clinic in Detroit,
from where
he escaped, to the Menninger
clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Andy lived both in mental institutions
and other places for the rest of his life, including Canada,
Sweden, Denmark, Israel,
Czechoslovakia, New York City, Washington, D.C.

After attending
Cranbrook, David spent two years (maybe more) as a high school
student at the Putney School, a private school
in
Putney, Vermont.
Then he
attended college at the University of California - Berkeley
for four years, majoring in political science. I attended
his graduation
in
1967. Then,
David studied urban planning at Hunter College in New York
City and obtained his
MA degree. He was a vista volunteer in Lumberton, North Carolina,
and
in Atlanta, Georgia, and in Minneapolis, Minnesota, among
other places.

Eventually David wound
up as a grant writer with a firm in New York City and then as a tape
librarian with Prodigy in
White
Plains, New
York.
He took a
buy out from that job in 1990 so he would spend more time
with Andy, then living in Washington, D.C. On January 1,
1991, He
was struck
by a car while
crossing
a highway in Gaithersburg, Maryland, sustaining brain damage.
David spent the rest of his life in head-injury units:
in Milford, Pennsylvania;
Austin, Texas;
Rochester, New York; and Kingston, New York.

Margaret attended
high school at the Kingwood School in Bloomfield Hills, which was
Cranbrook’s
sister school. Then, following my parents’ move
to New York City, she was enrolled at the Masters school
in Dobbs Ferry, New York. I attended her graduation in 1964. Then,
Margaret went to college
at Stanford in Palo Alto, California,
graduating in 1968. It was a turbulent period on college
campuses. Next, she attended law school at the University
of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She
met her future husband, George Isaacson, there; they
were on a debate team together.

After becoming a lawyer,
Margaret worked in the Public Defender's office
for several years in Boston, and then moved to Maine.
She was
hired by George
Mitchell, then U.S.
Attorney in Portland, and for the past several decades
has been handling court appeals for the federal government
in
Portland, Maine. She
and her family live
in Brunswick, about thirty miles north of Portland.

Andy

I was closest to my
brother Andrew (“Andy”) because we were
closest in age and often did things together when we were boys. I also had
the misfortune,
much later in life, to discover Andy’s dead
body on the floor of an apartment in a house that
I owned. He died during the night of July 23-24,
1999, in Minneapolis
during a heat wave. Andy was the first of my birth-family
members to die; we had gone so many years without
anyone dying though David had come close. It
was a shock from which I have yet not fully recovered.

My
childhood consciousness goes back to the time
when I was five to ten years old Andy and I played
with
the neighborhood
kids
in the yard,
or
in the alley,
or at school. There were friends like Roger and
Ann Taylor (on the corner of Seminole and Vernor
highway),
or Dave
and
John
Morse (across
the alley).
We
walked to and from Nichols school each day. Andy
and I slept in the same bedroom on the second
floor overlooking
the back
yard.
We dug
holes in
the ground (and
might have found a meteorite) and played “duck-on-rocks” in
the alley with empty beer cans. Softball was
our favorite organized sport. I was
the oldest among our group.

Andy was then a year
behind me in school. (Some time around high
school, my parents had Andy
held back
a year to give
him more
time to socialize.)
I entered
Detroit University School in the 5th grade;
Andy, in the 4th. We were rather rambunctious city
boys. We
teamed up
playing
marbles, and soon
assembled
one of the largest marbles collections of any
in the school. For
the first time,
we had homework to do. We both worked hard
at our classroom assignments. We memorized many
lines
of poetry (especially
by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow). During our first year, Andy was
judged to be the most improved student
in his
class. In my second year (6th grade), I was
first in my class academically. This pattern continued
for the
next
several
years. I was first
in the 7th, 8th, and (tied for first) 9th grades;
and I think Andy was
the
same in
his class.

In the summer of 1951,
my parents sent Andy and me to visit the Dallas family in England.
Bill
Dallas,
the
father,
had owned
a trucking
company that had
been nationalized by the Labour government.
He now owned a jewelry store in London. Marjorie
Dallas, the mother,
was incredibly
kind to Andy and
me. We
were closest in age to sons Robert and Michael.
Another
son, Gregor, and Caroline were much younger.
The Dallas family
owned an estate
in Sussex,
near Pulborough,
living in what was called “Toat House”.
There was also a stone tower on the property
which was visible for miles around. We spent
the first
five weeks of our ten-week stay on this estate
in Sussex and the remaining five weeks at
the Dallas’ cottage on the English
channel near Portsmouth.

I think this summer
in England expanded my
intellectual horizons. Andy and I collected
butterflies, including
the Peacock,
cabbage white,
red admiral,
and Tiger swallow butterflies. We melted
bee’s wax from the hives and
once caught a rabbit barehanded. Marjorie
Dallas arranged for us to visit interesting
places like the Tower of London, the Cheddar
Gorge, and ”Stoke Poges” where
Thomas Gray wrote his famous elegy. We
attended a Shakespearean play at Stratford-upon-Avon
and were given a personal tour of the House
of Commons and Blenheim Palace by Jo Sturdee,
Winston Churchill’s secretary.

Andy
and I experienced these things together.
We learned to play cricket. We learned
good table manners. Andy
was somewhat
shorter
than I and
had blond hair; my hair was reddish.
I talked with
Katherine Hepburn on the
airplane
returning to the United States and, of
course, got her autograph.

Those years
of the 5th and 6th grades were my formative years but at the same
time
some of
the earlier
energy and curiosity
was being
lost.
I became
a good
student. I learned to memorize information.
At the time, I may have had a greater
aptitude for
math
than for reading
or
writing.
Andy
was more
into
the natural
sciences. We both studied Latin under “coach” Francis
J. McCann. However, we were in separate
classes and each tended to go our own
way.

In the summer of 1953,
I went to a swimming camp in northern Ontario;
I forget what
Andy did that
summer.
In addition
to swimming across
the lake,
I learned
to play volleyball, lacrosse, and
golf and won all thirteen “merit badges” at
Camp Chickopee. However, in the following
summer, I believe, Andy played Little
League baseball in Milford, becoming
his team’s top hitter. David,
two years younger, played for the
same team. Being out of the age group,
I
had
to sit in the stands as a spectator.
The summers spent in Milford had
less appeal because I lacked friends
of
my own age.

Andy and I were not
as close in the 11th and 12th grades
because he was
a day
student, living
at
home, and I
boarded in the
dormitory. I took
to chemistry
and English, enrolling in Carl
Wonnberger’s “special
English” class.
I was also a “regular prefect”,
in charge of the first floor of
my dormitory, Marquis Hall. Andy
and
I did team up once on the school’s
debate team. We lost the debate
for which we had prepared, and
won the
debate for which we were unprepared.
I remember also playing doubles
tennis together
against a team of female champions
(trained by Jean Hoxie) and beating
them.

In the summer of 1956,
Andy went to a camp in Wyoming and climbed
the Grand
Teton
mountain. He was ready
to tackle
the cliff
across the Sawkill
creek
with hooks and rope. That summer,
along with Scott Romney, I studied
welding
and housewiring at Cass Technical
High School
in Detroit. In the following
summer, I went
to
a
study camp
at Deep Springs,
California,
after
winning a spot
through a competition. Then,
in the summer
of 1959, I toured Europe with
the Bunt family - Floyd Bunt had been
my chemistry
teacher
at
Cranbrook - while Andy lived
with the Kilian family in Berlin,
Germany. We were
both having
exciting
personal experiences, but separately.

I
entered Yale in the fall of
1958 as Andy became a junior
at Phillips
Exeter
Academy.
I think
he blossomed during
this time.
He made
lots of friends and
had interesting stories to
tell about his classmates - for instance,
Tom
Salmon who
had grown up
in Indonesia. He read
Marco Polo’s adventures
and made the honor roll. Exeter
was one of the top prep schools
in the United States.
With such a record, he was
admitted to Harvard after attending
Exeter
for two years.

In the summer
of 1960, Andy and I both
had summer jobs
in New
York City. He
worked at
Merrill Lynch,
as I
recall, and
I was
a copy
boy at the
Wall Street
Journal. We roomed together,
first at the Sloane House
YMCA in central
Manhattan
and then at
Margaret Fielding’s
apartment in the Bronx. Ms.
Fielding
was the aunt of a young man,
Michael Blechman, whom I
had known at the study
camp in California. We ran
into him unexpectedly in
the subway.

My father had
given us a
list of people to visit
in New York.
Andy
followed
through in making
the contacts.
Because
of
this, we were
allowed on the
floor of the New York Stock
Exchange to see
the place where American
Motors stock was traded.
We also had
a private
visit with the president
of NBC, Robert Kintner,
who
had once
peddled the Disneyland
television
show to my father
while at ABC.
I asked Kintner what struck
Andy as a stupid question:
Whether
the networks
tried to
make certain types
of people heroes
and others
villains. Kintner
said “no”.
We were also foolish to
turn down Kintner’s
offer of a pair of tickets
to Jack
Paar’s Tonight Show
because we didn’t
know anything about this
show.

I stayed in New York
for
an extra two weeks in
the late
summer
while Andy
returned to Michigan
before starting
his studies
at Harvard.
During that
time, I spent
some time with other
of Michael Blechman’s
relatives and met his
cousin, Gail Worthman, who was
three years younger than
me. We later dated. Meanwhile,
in Bloomfield Hills,
Andy had a major fight with
my parents. I don’t
think it involved violence.

In
the fall of 1960, I
decided to drop out
of
Yale to enter
the U.S.
Army.
I thought a little
nonacademic
experience
would help
me make
better use
of the remaining opportunities
I would have
at such a college.
My relatives might
have regarded this as an indication
of
personal weakness
or defeat.
But I did
it - even though the
Army rejected my application.
Andy, meanwhile, went
on
to Harvard. He spent
his freshman
year at
Pennypacker House,
making a
new set
of friends. He and
I attended the 1960 Yale-Harvard
football
game in Cambridge before
I dropped out of college.

I
can’t remember
much about Andy’s
Harvard experience
except that he took
a course about war
and peace. One of
his professors might
have
been
Timothy Leary - my
mother later believed
that Andy was introduced
to psychedelic drugs
in a course on thermonuclear
war. I do remember
that in the spring
of
1961 Andy and some
of his Harvard friends
went on a “peace” study
trip to Washington
D.C., where we visited
the State Department,
the Russian embassy,
the Supreme Court,
Congressional offices,
and other such institutions.
Now a college drop,
I joined the expedition
for a time. I remember
saying “goodbye” to
Andy as I headed
back to Michigan
on the
train. There was
a look of sadness
in
his eyes.

Andy was
then under a certain
emotional
strain.
One of
his college roommates
had a girl friend
named
April who
had sex
with him
in the dormitory.
Neither Andy and
I had done serious
dating
since
we had
mainly attended
all-boy
prep schools. We
were unsure of
relationships with women.
Drug
use might have
been a factor in
Andy’s growing
emotional instability.

This came to a
head in the summer
of
1961 when
I was
living with
my parents
in Bloomfield
Hills. Andy
got
into a heated
argument
with my
parents;
I was not present
during this episode.
On this
way out the door,
he picked up
a rock and
threw it
through the
glass
window. The rock
hit a pillar
which then
hit my mother
in the face.
My parents called
the police.
Eventually,
it was decided
to send
Andy to the
Lafayette clinic
in Detroit for
psychiatric evaluation.

Andy
was at the
Lafayette clinic
for about
a week. Then,
with the help
of
a Harvard
friend - it
might have been
Ron Epstein
- he
escaped. The
news of Andy’s
escape went
out over the
Detroit
air waves.
The Bunt family
stopped
by to offer
their assistance.
Eventually,
my parents
learned
that Andy had
gone to Cleveland,
Ohio. My parents
and I picked
Andy up at
a Cleveland
police
station.

One
of Andy’s
issues, he
said, was
the fear
of thermonuclear
war. He talked
with his
friends
about going
to Australia
to escape
the devastation.
We visited
a well-known
Quaker and
economist,
Kenneth Boulding.
Boulding
asked
my opinion.
I said that
I thought
maybe Andy
should
go to Australia
if that
was his wish.
However,
Andy had
no means
of financial
support.
He said he
might
rob people
if he needed
money. My
parents were
now convinced
that Andy
belonged
in a mental
institution.
Andy insisted
that he was
not mentally
ill; he was
more like
a misunderstood
genius. The
so-called
normal
people were
persecuting
him because
they could
not understand
his thought
processes.

I
was no
longer Andy’s
confidant
but tended
to side
more with my parents.
In truth,
I was off
in my own
little
world, memorizing
poetry,
writing philosophical
tracts,
and attending
debutante
parties.
Andy seemed
to be closer
to his
new sets of friends
although
he and
I never argued.
Eventually,
my parents
arranged
for Andy
to be a
patient at the Menninger’s
clinic
in Topeka, Kansas.
I drove
to Topeka with
my parents
to visit
the clinic
shortly
before I flew to
Munich,
Germany, in October.

My attitude
then
was that Andy
did have
mental
illness
and
that
Menninger’s
clinic
would
have the staff
to treat
his problems
successfully.
Andy
was now living
in Kansas,
and I
in West Germany.
I was
interested in news
that
the clinic
staff
had discovered
what
was wrong with
Andy
and know how
to treat
him.
Over time, it
appeared
that
Andy was diagnosed
with
schizophrenia and
that
this illness
might
be treated
with
psychotropic drugs.
I was
a distant
observer
at that
point.

The
bottom
line
is
that Andy
was
now in the
mental-health
system.
There
was
no “cure” as
such
but
only a succession
of
treatments. I have
lost
track
of
what Andy
did
in the 1960s
except
that
he
was in an
out
of mental-health
facilities
and
also did some
international
traveling.
I know
that
Andy
lived
at
a facility
near
Hartford,
Connecticut,
called
Institute
for
Living. A psychiatrist
in
New York
gave
him
shock treatment.
A dentist
mistakenly
pulled
out
his teeth
so
he lived
with
dentures
the
rest of his
life.
Eventually,
the
treatment involved
various
kinds
of
prescription drugs.
Andy
was
on at least
a dozen
different
kinds
of
medications for schizophrenia.

While
I
was in
Germany,
and
then
back
to
Yale,
and
finally
in
Minnesota,
Andy
was
living
in
various
places
after
being
released
from
the
Menninger’s
clinic.
I
think
he
lived
in
Quebec
for
a
time
and
might
have
been
involved
in
using
or
selling
drugs.
He
lived
in
Europe
in
the
mid
1960s.
He
had
a
Swedish
girl
friend
and
another
girl
friend
from
Binghamton,
New
York.
He
lived
a
Auge
Nielsen’s “world
university” in
Denmark
for
a
time
(and
might
later
have
convinced
John
Lennon
in
New
York
to
go
there).
He
visited
Prague.
He
also
spent
time
in
Israel
where
some
people
made
fun
of
his
last
name.

While
in Jerusalem,
he sent
a postcard
to President
Lyndon Johnson
with what
was regarded
as a
threatening message.
This put
Andy on
the FBI’s
suspect list.
Once, while
my parents
were living
in New
York City,
the FBI
visited their
apartment to
ask where
Andy would
be during
President Johnson’s
planned visit.
They were
satisfied by
my father’s
assurance that
he would
be in
Milford on
that day.

Later,
in 1972,
Andy was
arrested by
Secret Service
agents while
he was
browsing through
books at
a store
in the
Waldorf Astoria
where, unknown
to him,
President Nixon
was staying.
The news
went out
over the
wire that
a possible
plot against
the President
had been
foiled. (A
girl friend
in Minneapolis
heard the
news report
and told
me.) Andy
was taken
to a
city jail
in New
York where
he might
have been
sexually molested
by another
inmate.

While
I was
in Minnesota
leading a
relatively conservative
life, Andy
was experiencing
various aspects
of the
counterculture in
Europe and
New York
City. When
I saw
him once
in New
York in
the late
1960s, he
was physically
fit, mentally
sharp, and
relatively well
groomed. He
had a
girl friend
named Linda
Rolnitzsky and
friends in
the visual
and performing
arts. Some
of Andy’s friends in
experimental television made a video of his birthday party
at a Chinese restaurant in New York. He escaped from Bellview
hospital, he said, with the help of Lui,
owner of an electronics store CTL Electronics, and Lui’s
daughter Jennifer. For a time, Andy was obsessed with the idea
of marrying Jennifer.

Andy’s drug use was a matter of
controversy. My mother thought that his
mental problems began with drug experimentation at Harvard. The university
denied this in an exchange of correspondence. Andy himself thought this was
overblown. Yet, he did know Timothy Leary and had spent time at Leary’s
drug community in New York state. I myself once smoked a joint of marijuana
with Andy and some of his friends. I was not willing to become a “ground
control”.

When
my parents
moved to
Washington, D.C.,
Andy moved
there as
well. He
spent time
at St.
Elizabeth’s hospital where he became involved in patient’s
rights issues. Walter Mondale’s daughter Eleanor did a documentary,
including
some scenes with him. John Hinckley was a fellow inmate whom he met once.
Andy also lived at Woodley House; a Pinchot relative, Quentin Meyer, was
one of
his friends.

By
this time,
I think
the years
of medication
were beginning
to take
their toll.
Andy had
put on
some weight
and developed
a more
frightening appearance.
He developed
a more
distinctive personality
characterized by
some of
his enthusiasms,
such as
eating Moo
Moo Gai
Pan at
at Chinese
restaurant. He
briefly had
a job
with Reed
Irvine’s Accuracy in Media arranged by one of my father’s
friends. In that capacity, Andy was asked to pass out newsletters at the
Solidarity Day union rally in 1983. He was not a conscientious employee.

In
Washington, Andy
could not
help pestering
various dignitaries.
Misrepresenting himself,
he once
arranged a
personal meeting
with U.S.
Senator Pete
Wilson of
California who
called the
police once
he realized
what was
happening. Andy
also had
a run-in
with the
South Korean
embassy who
interpreted one
of his
phone calls
as terroristic.
My assessment
is that
Andy’s behavior, while
a nuisance, was essentially harmless. Andy wanted to participate in the Washington
scene. He also sampled religions such as Eckankar and Scientology. He had
a knack for making friends. Ken Showalter, who might have been employed by
C-SPAN,
was one. Brian Moore, a candidate for the DC city council, was another.

For
some reason,
Andy had
a fixation
with telephone
numbers. He
would often
recite the
person’s telephone number after mentioning someone by name.
Andy also wrote the numbers down on pieces of paper along with geometric
designs. His handwriting was large and strange-looking. Andy liked to attend
events
with free food, of which there were plenty in Washington, D.C. He made frequent
telephone calls to persons who interested him. While he did not live with
my parents in Washington, they had to deal with the occasional complaints
about
Andy’s bizarre behavior.

Andy
liked Washington,
being a
center of
important activities.
Even so,
he occasionally
visited me
in Minneapolis.
The first
time was
in the
late 1980s.
David also
visited then.
More significantly,
Andy came
to visit
in June
1993, this
time to
stay. Having
lost touch
with him
since our
college days,
I now
became responsible
for his
well being.

I’ll never forget the day that Andy arrived at the airport.
We stopped
at the Minneapolis convention center. There were two conventions of interest.
First, the DFL city convention was in the process of nominating Sharon Sayles
Belton for mayor. I was a delegate from my north Minneapolis precinct. Second,
the religion of Eckankar, which is headquartered in the Twin Cities, was holding
a large summer meeting. We attended both events in the same evening, one down
the hall from the other. Several days later, I arranged for Andy and me to
attend a Comedy Club event featuring female comedians, seated up in front.
Andy was called on for some reason, and his remark made everyone laugh.

About
the same
time, Andy
got sick.
I thought
it might
have to
do with
cat hairs
in the
apartment from
Toni the
cat. He
was having
trouble breathing.
Perhaps it
was an
asthma attack.
I took
Andy to
north Memorial
hospital. Soon
he was
in an
intensive-care unit
with tubes
stuck in
his nose.
Later Andy
had a
severe attack
of appendicitis
and almost
died. Andy
was at
north Memorial
for about
two weeks.
Then he
was transferred
to the
Queen Care
nursing home
on Glenwood
and Queen
avenue in
my own
neighborhood. I
visited it
beforehand. Andy’s Medicaid account was transferred from Washington,
D.C. to Minneapolis. He was here to stay.

Andy
was at
Queen Care
Center at
least through
the end
of the
year, perhaps
longer. While
I was
still employed
as an
accountant at
the Metropolitan
Transit Commission,
I also
owned rental
property. Andy
went with
me when
I closed
on a
9-unit apartment
in August
1993. The
local neighborhood
association had
pegged me
as a
slumlord even
though I
had owned
property for
only a
short time.
Unknown to
me, some
of its
Crime and
Safety Committees
were meeting
in a
room at
Queen Care
Center. Andy
attended some
of those
meetings. I
was later
told that
he had
tried to
defend me.
One evening,
when I
visited Andy,
I found
him at
one of
those meetings
where my
conduct was
being discussed.
I got
into a
heated argument
with the
committee members
which included
police officials.
I caught
them in
a number
of provable
lies.

Even
though the
Queen Care
Center helped
Andy’s recovery, it produced
another set of problems. Andy was a smoker but the center had a policy of
restricting cigarette consumption. One day, Andy pestered the head nurse for
cigarettes.
She accused him of harassment, claiming that he was a danger to others. The
county then tried to commit Andy to a mental health facility. He was involuntarily
removed to the Anoka Regional Health facility, a psychiatric hospital, where
he lived for several years.

Fortunately,
the county
was obligated
to appoint
an attorney
to represent
Andy’s
interest. He was Kurt Anderson, from a downtown law firm. The first
event
was an appearance in District Court. The county trotted out its witnesses
to show
that Andy was a danger to others, presumably a violent one. In the
course
of the trial, the prosecutor huddled with the judge to present a note to
the effect
that, because I was a suspect in a criminal investigation involving
my rental
property, Andy should not be allowed to live with me as a less restrictive
alternative to mental-health commitment. I knew nothing of any such police
investigation. (Years later, after the “investigation” was
presumably concluded, the records
were lost.) Anderson called me on the stand to deny involvement in criminal
activity. Even so, the judge ruled against Andy. He was committed
to Anoka.

Kurt
Anderson appealed
the decision
to the
Minnesota Court
of Appeals
and lost.
Then he
appealed to
the Minnesota
Supreme Court.
This court
ruled in
Andy’s
favor. He was released. I had been driving up to Anoka with some regularity
to visit Andy. Again, he had friends and made the most of the situation.

In
the meanwhile,
I had
developed a
relationship with
Sheila Foresta,
a black
woman who
had originally
been involved
in drug
activity in
my building
when I
first acquired
it. My
parents were
horrified, and
so was
Andy. Outspoken
as always,
he suggested
at first
that she
was a
prostitute as
were many
of her
black sisters.
This conversation
took place
on the
way to
an Eckankar
service in
Golden Valley.
Sheila fought
back.

Eventually,
Andy and
Sheila mellowed.
I married
Sheila in
January 1995.
She and
her family
moved into
the downstairs
unit of
my fourplex.
Andy and
I occupied
the two
units above
her on
the second
floor. Sheila
had five
young children
- two
boys and
three girls.
Andy liked
children and
enjoyed being
around Sheila’s.
For instance, he would sit on the sofa watching television with the kids.

On
one such
occasion, there
was a
show featuring
monsters. The
children squealed
with delight.
In Sheila’s hearing, Andy remarked that the kids seemed
to “enjoy being raped by the bogeyman.” It was an unfortunate
choice of words. Some interpreted it to mean that Andy was thinking of sexually
molesting
Sheila’s children. Indirectly, this resulted in the breakup of my
marriage with Sheila.

I
also remember
once when
we visited
the Mall
of America,
Andy sat
on a
stone ledge
next to
Erika, then
about four
years old.
A woman
of Scandinavian
descent in
horror called
this to
Sheila’s attention. Sheila rightly brushed it
off. Andy was a relative. Yes, Andy liked being around children but
he was
not a child molester, even if in some respects he looked the part.
He
had thick, bushy eyebrows and was overweight.

My
mother arranged
for Andy
and me
to tour
China in
May 1996
with a
group of
Exeter alumni
including James
Lilley, a
former U.S.
ambassador to
China, and
his wife.
My role
was to
see that
Andy regularly
took his
medications and
otherwise managed
the logistics
of such
a trip.
I think
Andy enjoyed
this experience.
The group
gave him
a special
award at
dinner on
the final
day. I
kept in
touch with
the tour
guide, Lily
Dong, and
through her
met my
future wife.

Upon
returning home
to Minneapolis,
however, I
soon discovered
that Sheila
and her
children had
moved out.
To me,
this signaled
the end
of our
marriage. Sheila
later explained
that she
told a
psychotherapist at
Pilot City
about Andy
and his “raped by the bogeyman” remark. The psychotherapist
said that the children were in danger. He would have to report it to Child
Protection if she and the children continued to live in the same house with
Andy. I had made it clear to Sheila that Andy was not moving from my house.
So Sheila felt she had no alternative but to move herself. Sheila was gone
in June and our marriage ended in November, 1996.

Though
I am
unclear on
the dates,
I do
remember that
Andy lived
at Oak
Grove rehab
center near
downtown Minneapolis
for the
better part
of a
year. This
must have
been before
the China
trip. It
was a
good facility
and Andy
enjoyed the
area, especially
St. Mark’s Episcopalian cathedral. One of the church
staff became a friend of his. Unfortunately, Andy became romantically attached
to a female staff person at Oak Grove who felt uncomfortable when he called
her “beloved”, and he had to leave.

Andy
also later
lived at
the Oasis
rehab center
on Golden
Valley road
in Golden
Valley. During
that time,
he developed
a romantic
relationship with
a female
resident named
Virginia Gauger.
Some time
in 1997,
they decided
to get
married. Andy
was then
occupying a
unit in
my fourplex
across from
my own,
on the
second story.
Virginia moved
in with
Andy before
they were
married. She
and Andy
seemed to
have compatible
personalities. They
enjoyed doing
things together
in the
neighborhood.

Their
wedding took
place on
Valentines day,
February 14,
1998, at
the Temple
of Eck
in Chanhassen.
My parents
came out
from Milford,
Pennsylvania, on
the Amtrak
train, which
was quite
a strain
for them
both. A
woman named
Nora Patrin,
who was
a long-time
friend of
Andy’s and recently a member of the Eck
clergy, presided at the wedding. She also arranged for Andy’s and Ginny’s
reception and for Ginny’s wedding dress. While Ginny and Nora were
shopping, my parents, Andy, and I went to see a newly released film at Knollwood
Plaza
called “Titanic”. Andy had spoken for so long about getting
married, and it had finally come to pass.

The
religion of
Eckankar was
a bond
between Andy,
Ginny, and
me. Andy
had first
encountered this
religion at
a conference
in Washington,
D.C. Then,
when Andy
came to
Minnesota, we
started attending
the monthly
services at
the Temple
of Eck
and the
worldwide events
at the
Minneapolis Convention
Center. Andy,
with his
outgoing personality,
became known
to many
in Eckankar
circles. He
used to
call people
in the
office.

Another
one of
our rituals
was shopping
for groceries
at Cub
Foods near
Highway 100
and 36th
street in
Robbinsdale. At
first I
bought the
groceries but
Andy wanted
more freedom
in choosing
what to
buy. He
loved the
sardines in
small tins.

Wearing uncomfortable
dentures, he
had to
be careful
what to
eat. I
bought an
expensive blender
thinking that
we could
turn fruits
and vegetables
into a
healthy soup.
It was
never used.
Likewise, we
abandoned a
disk satellite
cable system
for wired
cable because
it was
hard
to switch
between the
cable and
local channels.

Andy
and Ginny
also become
involved in
my landlord-group
activities to
a certain
extent. They
both took
part, for
instance, when
the group
shut down
a meeting
of the
Minneapolis City
Council in
early November,
1998, just
before the
state elections.
Andy tended
to go
with the
Democrats. He
favored Skip
Humphrey for
Governor of
Minnesota in
1998, and
Al Gore
for President
in 2000.
I favored
the maverick,
Jesse Ventura,
and wound
up voting
for Ralph
Nader in
2000.

Ginny
and Andy
liked to
sit on
the bench
outside my
9-unit apartment
building, holding
hands. At
other times,
they took
walks through
the Harrison
park. Neither
of them
drove an
automobile. Ginny
cooked meals
for Andy,
and I
think at
times he
enjoyed giving
her orders.
I was
unmarried at
the time.
Mainly, I
sat in
my office
in the
adjoining apartment
unit writing
my world-history
book, Five
Epochs of
Civilization.

Ginny,
Andy, and
I took
a bus
to Milford,
Pennsylvania, to
visit my
parents for
Christmas, 1998.
There was
tension between
Ginny and
a woman
hired to
help my
parents. My
sister Margaret
had refused
to be
at family
events involving
Andy because
of an
allegedly anti-Semitic
remark that
Andy had
made at
the breakfast
table in
1983. Margaret
had converted
to Judaism
when she
married George
Isaacson, who
was Jewish.
There was
some discussion,
which I
discouraged, that
Andy and
Ginny should
get divorced.
But this
was just
the talk
of an
aging family.
It was
our last
Christmas together.

My
mother had
a relapse
of colon
cancer in
May 1999.
After a
painful operation,
she decided
against aggressive
measures to
prolong her
life. Andy
and I
drove out
to see
our mother
in the
late spring
or early
summer, just
the two
of us
in the
car. We
were refused
entrance to
Canada because
Andy did
not have
proper ID.
I remember
Andy asking
for permission
to smoke
in the
car. He
also recalled
the name
of a
long-forgotten girl
in Liggett
School, and
I was
amazed by
his memory.
The conversation
between Andy
and my
mother was
sweet. I
recorded some
of it
on videotape
but cannot
locate the
tape without
difficulty.

On
day in
early July,
1999, I
received a
call from
Andy’s case worker,
Kathy Fitzinger, that Andy had collapsed on the sidewalk on a hot afternoon.
His condition was being evaluated at HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center).
When Ginny and I picked Andy up on the following day, we were told that he
had a disorienting salt imbalance as a result of sweating too much and drinking
water to stay cool. The doctor told us that this condition could be fatal,
if extreme. Ginny later repeated this, and I received a call from someone
at Eckankar asking if Andy had died. But Andy himself had spoken of his own
possible
death in the near future.

On
Friday, July
23, 1999,
I went
to my
weekly “Sufi” singing group
at Robert Bly’s house. I was then working on the index for my book, “Five
Epochs of Civilization”, and we talked of concepts in this book. I
went promptly to bed after returning home and fell asleep. I was vaguely
aware of
Andy coming into my room during the night complaining of the heat. I did
nothing. Then, perhaps an hour later, I heard a loud noise in the adjoining
room. I
found Andy, with his clothing removed, lying on the floor. I brought him
a glass of water; he took a sip, but no more. Then I tried to lift him back
onto
the sofa where he had been sleeping. He was too heavy. I opened the windows
to let cooler air into the room. I placed sofa cushions on the floor and
rolled Andy onto the cushions. I brought a small fan from my room, turned
it on, and
blew air at Andy. Then I summoned Ginny from the interior bedroom. Then,
I went back to my own room.

On
the next
morning, Saturday,
July 24th,
I read
the newspaper
for half
an hour
or so
when I
first awoke.
Then I
decided to
check on
Andy. After
opening the
door, I
found him
face down
on the
floor. His
face was
strangely swollen.
Suddenly, it
struck me
that Andy
might be
dead. I
think I
may have
tried mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation. Andy’s body was still warm. I called 911 and then my
sister in Maine. Andy’s remains would go to Milford. Through the Milford
funeral home, she located a place in Eagan, Minnesota, to take the body. While
I was
on the telephone, some paramedics took Andy’s body away on a stretcher
down the steps.

Evidently
tests were
done at
HCMC to
see whether
the medications
had anything
to do
with Andy’s death. Even if they did, I was partly to blame in failing
to take the warning signs seriously enough. I have often thought how easy
it might have been simply to put Andy in a tub of cold water. But I was half
asleep
on that fateful night and not attentive enough.

Ginny
and I
viewed Andy’s body at the funeral home in Eagan. He was cremated,
partly out of shipping convenience and partly because Andy had spoken favorably
of cremation when John F. Kennedy, Jr. had died in a plane crash the week
before. I ordered a bronze container for his ashes. Funeral services for Andy
were
held at the Temple of Eck and also at the St. Olaf’s Catholic church
in downtown Minneapolis. Ginny and I then drove to Milford to attend a small
ceremony in Andy’s honor at Milford Convalescence Center, driving
through Detroit. My father presided, my mother attended in a wheel chair,
and David
was also there.

The
urn and
ashes then
sat for
five years
in a
cardboard box
kept in
the Milford
house until
buried in
the Milford
cemetery in
July 2005.
On that
day, David
and Andy
were buried
in the
same family
plot under
a marble
obelisk. My
father was
buried next
to my
mother in
another grave
plot in
the Milford
cemetery. My
sister Margaret
and several
of her
family members
also attended
the simple
ceremony in
honor of
the three
McGaughey men.

Andy’s widow, Ginny, has continued to live in my neighborhood.
Not long
after Andy died, she found a new boy friend, Tim Lewandowsky, who lives several
blocks away. She has become a tenant in my apartment though she seldom stays
there. She has retained the name Ginny McGaughey.

Note: Andy died on July 24, 1999. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Andrew E. Durham, who died in Greencastle, Indiana, on July 24, 1954 - exactly 45 years earlier. Both were found lifeless on the floor. Andrew Durham was a former Indiana state senator.

David

My
brother David
was three
and a
half years
younger than
I, and
for that
reason I
was not
as close
to him
in the
early years
as I
was to
Andy. I
think he
slept in
a different
room at
2224 Seminole
in Detroit.
David, too,
went to
Grosse Pointe
University School,
public school
in Bloomfield
Hills, and
then to
Cranbrook. He
had a
different set
of friends.

While
I was
at Yale,
David also
attended private
school at
the Putney
School in
Putney, Vermont.
This was
a place
where he
found himself.
Persons of
the liberal
political persuasion
such as
as James
Tobin and
Walter Reuther
sent their
children there.
Putney’s founder, Ms. Hinton, had lived in “Red
China” for several years. David had a black roommate from the south.
Exposure to manual labor was part of the program. I don’t know if
that made David a leftist activist but he enjoyed the environment. He also
kept
active in Putney alumni activities.

David’s college years were spent
at the University of California at Berkeley,
not far from my mother’s sister, Ann Weinrichter, and her family. David
majored in political science. He attended the American University in Beirut
for a year and might also have experienced the “Free Speech” movement
at Berkley. By that time, I was living in Minnesota.

I
did attend
David’s graduation in 1967. It was the “summer of
love” and San Francisco was the epicenter of the counterculture. I
drove from St. Paul to San Francisco in four days in a 1956 Chevrolet. The
car broke
down in the Bonneville salt flats and had to be towed to Wendover in Nevada.
The graduation ceremony itself included a graduate dressed up in a cape
as “Captain
America”. The San Francisco scene that year was unlike any other that
I have experienced. Those concert posters were something else!

I
believe that
David moved
back to
New York
City after
graduating from
college. He
might have
taken courses
at Columbia
University. He
did obtain
his master’s
degree in city planning from Hunter College but never had a planning position
in city government. Instead, he became a Vista volunteer.

David
lived in
Lumberton, North
Carolina, for
several years;
and also
in Atlanta,
Georgia. I
know he
participated in
outdoors activities
like hiking
with people
his age.
One who
knew him
from that
period was
John Wells,
who later
lived in
St. Paul.
I have
been in
contact with
several people
who remembered
David fondly
from the
late 1960s
and 1970s.

David
also spent
six months
or so
in Minneapolis
as a
Vista volunteer,
working out
of the
old federal
office building
on 4th
street. I
was married
to Carol
at the
time and
working at
American Hoist & Derrick Co. We did take a trip
together to the south shore of Lake Superior, scouting real estate to buy.
Carol and I wound up buying a lot on Lake Superior and 40 acres plus a log
cabin near
Port Wing. We also bought a house in White Bear township with frontage on
the lake. David and my parents loaned us some money to help with the down
payment.

After
his Vista
years, David
lived in
Albany, New
York, where
he worked
for New
York state
government. An
attractive co-worker,
Maureen McNamara,
visited our
family in
Milford. Then
David returned
to New
York City.
He became
a professional
grant writer.

David
bought a
condo unit
at 554
Riverside Drive
in Harlem,
not far
from Grant’s
tomb. He spent time and money fixing up the place. Then he traded one unit
for a larger one and again worked at improving his property. I remember once
taking
a walk through this neighborhood near Columbia University. David was a tour
guide pointing out interesting sites to me.

In
the late
1980s, David
took a
job at
Prodigy in
White Plains,
New York,
which was
one of
several pioneering
firms that
introduced personal
computers to
the public.
He would
up being
a tape
librarian. A
colleague at
work was
writing software
for a
mail-order operation,
which interested
me somewhat.
Eventually, in
1990, David
decided to
leave Prodigy
so he
could spend
more time
with Andy.

David
never married.
I
know he
was interested
in Linda
Rolnitzsky whom
he had
met through
Andy. He
kept in
touch with
Lucy Yang
from his
Putney years.
As an
older brother,
I probably
could have
helped him
more in
that area
but I
did not.
I was
off in
my own
world. Though
both college
graduates, we
were both
marginally employed
and never
raised children.

In
the years
before his
accident, my
brother David
was physically
trim. He
had few
personal hang-ups
but had
sensible opinions.
He was
a cheerful
person. Often
David was
a source
of information
of possible
use to
me. For
instance, when
I bought
land in
northern Wisconsin,
David told
me about
a cheap
drill for
digging a
well that
was available
through the
Whole Earth
catalog. He
was always
available to
help family
members.

Just
before his
accident, David
took an
active part
in a
political campaign
to maintain
the water-quality
designation for
the Sawkill
creek, behind
our Milford
home, which
was needed
to stave
off development
farther up
the creek.
My parents
were also
involved. Along
with Matthew
Brennan, David
became co-director
of Pike
Environmental Defenders
(PED). He
worked closely
with Nancy
Pittman and
Peter Pinchot
in this
environmental project.
They were
grandchildren of
Gifford Pinchot,
founder of
the U.S.
Forestry service.

David’s accident occurred on New Years Day, 1991. I
received a phone call from my mother that something serious had happened to
him. After leaving
Prodigy,
David had rented an apartment in Gaithersburg, Maryland, so he could help
find activities for Andy, who lived in nearby Washington, D.C.

One
evening, David
was struck
by a
car as
he attempted
to cross
a highway.
The skid
marks indicated
that the
car was
traveling at
a high
rate of
speed. David
was flown
by helicopter
to a
Washington, D.C.,
hospital where
he remained
in a
coma for
three weeks.
He was
severely brain
injured and
also had
some leg
injuries that
eventually healed.

David’s remaining fourteen years were spent in head-injury
recovery units
around the country. The first, by coincidence, was a facility in Milford,
Pennsylvania. David went through an angry phase while living there. He knew
that my parents
lived several blocks away in Milford. Occasionally, he would wander away from
the nursing home and make his way to their house. He was angry not to be living
there.

My
parents eventually
took him
out of
the Milford
facility. David
went to
another, more
highly regarded
facility in
Austin, Texas,
with the
help of
Congressman Charles
Rangel. There
he lived
in the “Alamo” unit. I never visited
him there. I’m not sure what kind of treatment David received; there
was not much that could be done about patients injured so severely.

David’s
apartment and most of his other assets were promptly sold to pay for his
medical care. Perhaps because David’s treatment was now being
paid by New York Medicaid, it was necessary now to move him to a facility in
New York
state. He was moved first to a facility near Rochester, New York. I would
drop him off at the facility to or from trips between Minnesota and Milford.
Often
we would visit the Mormon sites near Palmyra such as the Hill Cumorah where
my cat, Toni, once got lost in the woods.

Later,
David was
transferred to
another facility
at Lake
Katrine near
Kingston, New
York. My
sister was
then David’s financial conservator. I assumed this
duty around 2000 along with a court-appointed attorney. The court order required
me to visit David at least four times a year but also allowed me to charge
reasonable traveling expenses - $400 per round trip. I often drove the 70
miles or so between
Milford and Lake Katrine following the course of the old Delaware and Hudson
canal.

David
was generally
placid. He
could understand
more than
he could
speak. When
I tried
to carry
on a
conversation, he
answered in
short phrases
such as “yes” or “no”.
Once when we passed through the New York town of Hugenot, I asked David if
he knew who the Hugeunots were. “French Protestants”, he replied.
Occasionally, David would try to engage in longer conversations but he was
often frustrated.
After Andy’s death in 1999, he once asked where Andy was. I had to
tell him.

During
the first
five years
of the
21st Century,
I would
drive to
Milford three
or four
times a
year. My
routine was
to visit
my mother,
my father,
and my
brother David,
who were
in separate
facilities in
Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and
New York.
I would
drive my
brother and
father to
see my
mother, who
could not
be moved.
Once or
twice, my
father and
I drove
to Kingston,
New York,
to visit
David. Alternatively,
I would
bring David
back to
Milford for
a visit.

When
my wife
Lian and
daughter Celia
arrived in
the United
States in
late July,
we visited
David in
Lake Katrine
on the
2nd or
3rd day.
We ate
ice cream
cones together
at a
nearby stand.
Then I
brought David
back to
Milford to
spend the
night in
the house
which I
now owned.
I’m sure David was wondering who
these Chinese women were. During the night, he wandered into the room where
Lian and Celia were sleeping, which frightened them.

David’s health grew
worse in his later years. First he developed colon
cancer and then experienced kidney failure. He had been given so many antibiotics
that the germs had become drug-resistant. I took him back to Milford less
often. On one of my last trips, I visited David in the Kingston hospital. He
was still
lucid and seemed glad to see me.

The
last visit
was in
February, 2005,
not long
after our
father had
died. By
then, David
was entirely
bed-ridden. He
could hardly
speak. I
brought my
new York
terrier dog,
Do Do,
to help
cheer David
up. Do
Do needed
a rabies
vaccination before
hospital staff
would allow
him into
the room.
David hardly
responded. He
had bed
sores and
was in
pain, despite
the medications.

I
was in
Beijing, China,
with my
wife when
I received
a phone
call from
my sister
saying that
David had
died in
the Kingston
hospital. His
body had
been kept
in cold
storage for
a time,
but the
hospital was
anxious to
have it
removed. David
had a
burial fund.
I decided
not to
cremate him
as my
parents and
Andy were
but have
him buried
in a
full casket.
The stone
monuments were
already in
place. Stroyan
funeral home
in Milford
also arranged
to bury
Andy’s ashes in an
adjoining grave. The ceremony took place, as I said, in July, 2005.

David
was a
kind, gentle
person who
experienced extreme
hardship at
the end
of his
life. There
was some
discussion as
to whether
we should “just let nature
take its course” and let David die. I could not bring myself to make
that decision, but it might merely have prolonged the agony.

In
2010, I
learned that
David had
taken out
a life
insurance policy
for Andy’s
benefit, making me a secondary beneficiary. Since Andy had previously died,
I was entitled to the proceeds. David’s kindness had extended beyond
the grave. I was then scraping against the limits of my personal credit. The
insurance
money gave me additional financial breathing space.

Margaret

Margaret,
or “Margy”, was the youngest child in the family and my
only sister. Again, the age difference was such that I barely recall her
younger years. I know that my mother wanted a daughter and took great delight
in Margaret.
While in elementary school, she took ballet lessons. My mother would occasionally
take her out to lunch. Margaret had a close association with some of our
cousins on my mother’s side during the summers spent in Milford.

After
my parents
moved to
New York
City in
1963, Margaret
was my
parents’ closest
companion. She attended the Master’s school in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
My mother had once been a reporter with the Tarrytown newspaper. Before I
moved
to Minnesota, I attended several events involving Margaret and her high-school
friends. Randy Paar visited Milford one weekend when my college roommate
visited; we all went tubing on the Delaware river.

So,
unlike the
McGaughey boys,
Margaret was
developing a
more conventional
social life.
She also
did well
academically. She
attended Stanford
University, again
near Aunt
Ann Weinrichter,
and then
decided to
go to
law school
at the
University of
Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. I
visited her
once.

Margaret
met her
future husband
at the
law school
when they
were on
a debate
team together.
She had
previously dated
Geoff Parker
of Janesville,
Wisconsin, who
later married
the daughter
of Dave
Bon, one
of my
father’s closest
friends. I think David was named after him. David’s middle name, Payson,
came from my great-grandfather. Margaret herself was named for my mother’s
sister. Andy was named for our maternal grandfather. I was named for my
father.

Margaret
attended the
1968 Republican
National Convention
as a
reporter for
a news
organization related
to the
United Nations.
I could
not get
near the
convention although
I had
a great
interest in
politics that
year. It
shows that
when an
attractive, intelligent
woman comes
of age,
opportunities come
her way.
I, the
once high-riding
older brother,
was marginalized
as Margaret
connected with
an attractive
husband and
career.

Margaret’s first years as a lawyer were spent in Boston. She
might have
worked in the Public Defender’s office or for Legal Aid. Then in 1979
she married her boy friend George Isaacson, who was living in Maine, after
George’s
father died. She moved to Brunswick, Maine, and converted to Judaism. Our
whole family went to the wedding.

George
and Margaret
once visited
me in
Minnesota when
I was
married to
Carol. Already
partner in
his law
firm, George
was representing
a client,
L.L. Bean,
who had
been accused
of falsely
claiming that
its garments
contained down.
He later
became an
authority in
issues related
to payment
of the
state sales
tax in
interstate commerce.
Around 1978,
Margaret gave
me legal
advice on
how to
deal with
a gravel
contractor in
northern Wisconsin
with whom
I had
a dispute
regarding the
contract price.

Margaret,
as I
said, went
to work
for the
federal government
in Portland,
Maine. She
taught legal
writing for
a college
course. Some
of her
cases with
the U.S.
Attorney’s Office involved drug-smuggling cases; Maine has a
coastline
that is difficult to police. In later years, she specialized in appeals,
and once argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. She has also handled asset-forfeiture
cases. Her professional name has remained Margaret D. McGaughey.
She is
currently
serving as Appellate Chief for the U.S. Attorney’s office
in Portland.

Margaret
and George
Isaacson have
three children
- Emily,
Abigail, and
Nathan. Emily
was born
in 1982,
Abigail, in
1985; and
Nathan, in
1988. The
family lived
near the
Bowdoin College
campus in
Brunswick, Maine.
All the
Isaacson children
have taken
music lessons.
Emily, the
oldest, has
performed in
dramatic performances
with theater
companies in
Maine. I
attended Abigail’s bat mitzvah in the
late 1980s, and Emily’s wedding in June, 2010.

In
later years,
a certain
tension developed
between Margaret
and me
after my
mother’s colon cancer returned in 1999 and she decided not
to treat it. Evidently, Margaret and Aunt Ann Weinrichter thought
I was doing too little about
my parents’ care. Margaret was given power of attorney regarding
my parent’s
personal affairs. I had some disagreements about a trust fund
that
I administered for Andy jointly with my mother and about certain
personal belongings in a safety-deposit
box.

The
main disagreement,
however, was
about my
father. I
wanted him
to come
to Minnesota
to live
in an
assisted-living facility
or nursing
home. Margaret
and Aunt
Ann wanted
him to
remain in
the Milford
area in
a nursing
facility. My
father thought
that health
professionals had “kidnapped” him when he was
removed from his home.

Previously,
Margaret had
decided to
have nothing
to do
with Andy
after he
made an “anti-Semitic” remark during a breakfast
in my parents’ Washington,
D.C., condominium in 1983 at which Margaret and George
were
present. Thereafter, Margaret refused
to attend any family event at which Andy might be present.
I chided her for her narrow-mindedness. While
Andy’s schizophrenia did not completely
excuse his behavior, I felt that the offense was being
blown
out of proportion.

I
wish I
were closer
to Margaret,
George, and
their children,
who are
now young
adults. I
had a
brief opportunity
to see
them last
summer at
Emily’s wedding
in Bristol, Maine. Unfortunately, I had to cut my
attendance short to catch a plane back to Minnesota.
Margaret and George have both had successful careers
in the field of law. They have three intelligent,
attractive children, now largely
grown.

So
this is
my youngest
sibling, together
with me
the surviving
contingent of
the McGaughey
family. Perhaps
some day
we can
meet together
again in
a more
leisurely fashion
in Milford,
Minnesota, or
Maine.